


Starships (A Girls & Horses Remix)

by ingberry



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, Rare Pairings, Remix, Romance, Science Fiction, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-03 20:27:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingberry/pseuds/ingberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elena had never met anyone who loves HORSEs as much as she does before attending Nemeth Intergalactic Military Academy. Meeting Mithian, who handles The Bow like it’s an extension of herself and rides a HORSE fearlessly, changes everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starships (A Girls & Horses Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sophinisba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Girls & Horses](https://archiveofourown.org/works/292140) by [sophinisba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba). 



> This is a space AU remix of sophinisba's lovely fic Girls & Horses. After the initial moment of panicked flailing about what I was going to do, I had so much fun writing this and I absolutely love the original fic ♥ 
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who've contributed to this with their emotional support and/or beta skills. They'll remain nameless for the time being as to not give me away!

“Come on, Mithian.” Elena reaches for The Bow, but Mithian holds it out of her reach, laughing. “Just let me try it one time!”

Mithian twists herself until the weapon is out of arm’s reach, pushing Elena back with a hand to her head, her fingers _basically_ stroking Elena’s hair. Almost. Elena goes back in, trying to wrestle The Bow from Mithian’s grip just to have Mithian’s hand pushing her away again.

If being pushed away is the only way she can get Mithian (The Perfect, Brilliant, Godlike Princess of Nemeth Intergalactic Military Academy) to touch her, then so be it.

“No, you’re not allowed!” Mithian says with emphasis, but smiles anyway. “Last time you handled one you nearly knocked the planet out of orbit.”

“But how will I get better if no one lets me try?” Elena throws her head back in frustration and runs after Mithian when she realises she’s being left behind.

Mithian rests The Bow against her right shoulder, walking down the hill from the Academy with sure steps on the uneven and rocky path. She’s a little magical, Elena decides as she slips and slides behind her.

It is, annoyingly, true that Elena can’t handle The Bow. She'd certainly tried, because it's what all of them want when they start training at the Academy. It was the first thing they’d been shown as they stood straight and nervous in front of the King and Queen when they arrived, and it became the ultimate goal.

The Bow isn’t nearly as easy to control as it looks. It’s a long, light laser gun, the muzzle of it shaped like a bow without the arrow, and precision is key. Elena lost that particular key a long time ago.

Throwing a look over her shoulder, Mithian veers off to the left, following the clearing of the small Bluebirch tree forest, jumping off the crystals with ease. “No offense, El, but practise makes perfect only applies if you don’t kill everyone on the planet in the process.”

“Hey, I was _not_ that bad,” Elena protests as the training grounds come into view.

Okay, so, if she has to be completely honest she was really that bad, but the thing is that Elena Gawant isn’t made for things that take minute precision and requires no stumbling. She dearly wishes she was elegant and confident, but she isn’t really.

Mithian stands in the middle of the training field, legs wide apart, and settles into position with The Bow pointing ahead. She fires a series of rapid lasers towards the targets and that’s Elena’s cue to sprint over to check how the shots landed.

“First one is a perfect ten,” she yells, the wind making her hair whip into her face and she pushes it back with a huff. “The rest are a little too far to the right.”

Mithian rolls her shoulders, shrugging each of them alternately before pulling The Bow back into position.

“Don’t shoot!” Elena shouts as she runs out of the way.

“I’d never. You’re precious cargo.”

Elena beams, her stomach flipping as if there’s a sudden zero gravity situation in there.

No one will ever know why Mithian, ranked Princess at Nemeth Intergalactic Military Academy, would spend so much time with Elena, ranked Baroness. But somehow, Mithian has been the only one who’s never cared that Elena doesn’t know how to tame her hair, or knocks down all the equipment in the training hall. And for that, Elena has always loved her. It’s just that now she loves her for other reasons too, like the bow of her lips and the way her soft body looks in the skintight Academy suit.

Mithian shoots again, the purple beams of laser lighting up the area for a brief moment. She frowns a little as she lowers The Bow and Elena gives her a thumbs up before hurrying over to the targets.

“I should strip your rank,” she says, bending over the target. “A true Princess wouldn’t shoot all of her lasers down left. _Honestly_.”

“Maybe I should shoot you after all,” Mithian says, eyebrow raised.

Elena grins as Mithian points The Bow right at her. It’s one of the deadliest weapons in the galaxy, but all she does is smile in the face of it because it’s Mithian’s finger on the trigger. When Mithian pretends to shoot, yelling “You’ve been hit!” with dramatic flourish, Elena spreads her arms and lets herself fall back into the grass with a delirious laugh.

For a moment, all she sees is one sun high in the sky and the other painting the horizon in a wonderful sunrise, and then Mithian is standing over her, her lips curled into a smile.

“It doesn’t matter if you can’t handle The Bow,” she says, reaching down to grab Elena’s hand, “because you’re _really_ good at falling.”

Elena’s skin buzzes under her touch.

“The best,” Elena says, and grins.

*

Until Mithian, Elena had never met anyone who loves HORSEs as much as she does. Well, technically, it’s Hyper-Orion™ Rapid Space Express, but that’s a bit of a mouthful in any situation, so it’s always just been HORSE. And ever since the day her dad had bought her one, Elena had loved them with every breath.

She may not be good at handling The Bow. She might not excel in fight training. She may not be one of those with medical talent. But she knows how to whisper to the HORSE until it does her bidding, smoothing around every curve with ease.

With the HORSE she has all the grace she’s never had anywhere else.

No one had quite understood why she loves it so much and why it means so much to her. Not until Mithian had watched Elena fly the first day at the Academy and proceeded to bounce over to her, hair flying behind her like a cape. There had been awe in her eyes and a bright smile on her lips.

Mithian loves it too. Maybe not quite as much as she loves The Bow, but Elena doesn’t expect her to. She doesn’t have to choose. It’s not an either-or kind of thing. Elena loves several things too.

They have a weekend off from the Academy and they’re spending it in the skies, setting off from Nemeth in the early morning. The two of them have been spending their weekends off with the HORSEs ever since they’d been old enough to fly on their own.

Nemeth is stretched under them as they leave, blue and vast, the crystal clusters gleaming in the morning light. Mithian is right ahead of her, gliding sure and steady, but soon Elena needs more speed and she pushes ahead. She slides past Mithian with ease, slicing through the air in a way that makes her feel just a little invincible.

“Show off,” Mithian says through the communication device and Elena smirks, reaching up to make sure the earpiece doesn’t fall out.

“You were driving like a Knight.”

“Hey! I do _not_ drive like a Knight,” Mithian protests loudly. “Harsh, El.”

Mithian comes up on her right, doing a roll that makes Elena look heavenward.

“Who’s the show off now?”

“You started it.”

Elena turns to the left in a wide curve, grinning at the way the HORSE responds to her movement.

“Just shut up and put on some music,” Elena says as they plunge off the edge of Nemeth and out into the darkness of space. “It’s still ages until we reach Camelot and I’m not listening to you the entire way.”

Mithian puts on music and they talk over it the entire time.

*

There’s something about Camelot. Where Nemeth is mostly open landscape and rolling hills of blue interspersed with shades of brown and pink, Camelot is bright green. It’s vegetated by never ending forests where the trees reach towards the sky, paths winding between them. They are lived in and well-walked, and at the same time it looks like they haven’t been travelled in years – overgrown and private.

In the middle of those immense stretches of trees, there are little lakes, blue like the hills of Nemeth, but with darker depths and more secrets. They make Elena feel both calm and exhilarated all at once.

Mithian is lying in the grass next to her, head pillowed on her arm and her eyes closed against the single sun. Her hair, tied in a braid, curves around her neck and rests on her chest. Elena follows it with her eyes, lingering a little on the way the flight suit clings to Mithian’s shape.

Sometimes, Elena wonders if this is as good as life is going to get. When she gets really melancholy about it, she can picture herself, years from now, looking back on these days with a deep longing in her chest. She can see herself wanting back to those days of HORSEs and Camelot and Mithian (The Perfect Princess of Godlike Attributes).

“You’re thinking too loudly,” Mithian mutters, wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue.

Rolling her eyes, Elena flops back on the grass, her lips quirking at the way it prickles softly against her skin. The sun is blocked out a little when Mithian props herself up on her elbow, looking her up and down.

“I like the way you think,” Mithian says and looks almost a little guilty.

Elena bites down on a smile. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

Mithian gives a one-shouldered shrug. The sunlight is framing her head in a bright glow and she almost looks like she’s a being made entirely of light.

“Did you know that I like everything about you?” Mithian smiles, wide and genuine.

And Elena believes it. She’s never had anyone who’s accepted all of her like it’s easy, like it doesn’t take effort. The warmth spreading under her skin powers her grin.

Mithian’s lips are exactly as soft as they look and every bit as perfect as Elena had imagined. Their touch is a little hesitant, but insistent at the same time. The kiss is warm and sweet and just a little messy. Elena leans into it, pressing her fingertips to Mithian’s skin, visible over the neckline of her suit. It’s like a pale, soft canvas under the trace of her fingers, waiting to be mapped out and discovered.

When her hand skims over Mithian’s neck, breath gusts warm over her cheek and she shivers, unable to look away from Mithian’s face. It’s so close and perfectly familiar, yet foreign, this way.

“You might end me,” Elena says, because it’s true.

“Shush.” Mithian kisses her, lips still upturned in a smile. “I’m good for you.”

*

Being with Mithian, Elena decides, is a lot like flying a HORSE. It’s about pushing the right button at the right time. It’s about knowing it and feeling it. It’s about loving it and being one with it, knowing when to push and when to pull. It’s the same sort of feeling when she glides effortlessly through the air as when she runs her hand over the silken skin of Mithian’s inner thigh.

When Mithian writhes under her touch the feeling is a lot more intense, but it’s the same feeling of flying and never wanting to land.

The crystals in the cave reflect on Mithian’s skin when there’s just enough sunlight from outside to filter through them. Elena traces the shapes with her fingers, watching Mithian’s lips part as she shivers, the muscles in her stomach clenching.

Mithian’s leg twitches when Elena strokes her slowly with two sure fingers, her other hand curled around her thigh. The first moan makes Elena close her eyes and swallow, her heart thumping in her chest. She can’t keep them closed for long, though, because Mithian is beautiful like this, her breath shuddering and her cheeks flushed. Her breasts rise and fall with her uneven breath and Elena’s mouth goes dry.

The cave is dark and if it hadn’t been for the light filtering in from the mouth of it, Elena wouldn’t have been able to see the way Mithian’s stomach clenches. Her face is hidden in the shadows when she throws her head back for a moment, the light from the crystals creating little patterns from the base of her neck. They continue down over her breasts and her stomach and Elena bends down to kiss one that disappears as she bends close enough to mouth at the skin.

Slipping a finger inside Mithian, Elena catalogues every reaction: the flutter of her eyelids, the way she licks her lips, the clenching of her hand and the arch of her back.

“Perfect,” Elena whispers with her lips pressed to Mithian’s thigh, hoping it’s too muffled to be heard.

Mithian moans the loudest when Elena pushes two fingers forwards and then back, pressing into the soft warmth that wraps around them easily. The way Mithian moves back into the touch with a low whimper makes Elena want to give her everything and more. She bites back a moan, her teeth sinking into her lips when she watches the spot where her fingers disappear into Mithian.

When she looks up, Mithian’s breathing heavily with her head turned to the side, baring her neck. The braid slips from her shoulder and Elena can’t resist it. She leans in and closes her fingers around it near the middle, wrapping it around her hand and tugs – just a little, just enough. 

Mithian’s eyes open in surprise and she comes around Elena’s fingers, back arching with the reflections from the crystals dancing across her skin.

*

When they’re cleared for missions by the Academy, there’s no one Elena trusts more than Mithian. There’s a sense of comfort in their team, because Elena knows she can get them there safely and when they’re there, Mithian is the one with The Bow.

Elena knows they will either live or die together. There is no one or the other, it’s both or neither. It’s the way it should be and the way it will be.

When Elena lands the HORSE at their given checkpoint, climbing out on unsteady legs, the foreign planet is cold and grim. Everything is uncertain and never quite the way it should be. But Mithian is behind her, The Bow held securely in her hand like an extension of herself.

“I’ve got you,” says Mithian (ranked Princess of Nemeth Academy and ranked Everything in the life of Elena Gawant).


End file.
